Prongslet's Story
by Dracoisalooker76
Summary: “But Dad, this will help you too. You’re the husband that Mum always wanted and you pay more attention to Remus and Sirius...And do you know why? Because you’re scared you’ll lose them like you’ll lose me.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Harry Potter and the characters belong to J.K. Rowling and the song Live Like You Were Dying belongs to Tim McGraw.**

**Caution: Tissues should be close by...**

**He said I was in my early forties**

**With a lot of life before me**

**When a moment came that stopped**

**me on a dime**

**James was nervous. He walked around in circles. The healer finally called Lily and James in. Soon the healer talked on and on about things that James didn't understand. "So what's wrong with my son?" James asked. The healer understood and gave James the x-rays. **

**And I spent most of the next days**

**Looking at the x-rays**

**And talking 'bout the options, talking**

'**bout sweet time**

"**James what are we going to do?" Lily asked, but James was too focused on the x-rays to answer. "Damn it James answer me!" **

"**Do you remember when Harry first showed signs of magic?"**

"**Yes but James-"**

"**Or," he interrupted, "when he got his Hogwarts letter."**

"**Yes, of course, but now James," she said looking him in the eyes. "We have to focus on the present, not the past. Options, what's going to happen, not what happened already."**

"**I'm going to go talk to Dumbledore."**

"**JAMES!"**

**And I asked him when it sank in**

**That this might really be the end**

**How's it hit ya' when you get that**

**kind of news**

**Man, what'd you do (he said)**

**James looked at Harry. It was 4 months ago that they found out that he was sick. It had been off and on but each time he just got worse. Each time he got excused from classes, and now he was home and he wasn't going back to Hogwarts. James feared that Harry would never be able to walk on the stone floor of the school again.**

"**Dad, I know what your thinking. How does it feel when you know you're gonna die."**

**James was stunned. Harry was the most optimistic person he knew, then again, you have to be if your best friend is Neville Longbottom, boy-who-lived. Lily and Sirius and Remus and himself had told Harry that he was going to make it, but as each time took it's toil and Harry's body got the damage, so did his mind.**

**I went sky diving I went rocky**

**Mountain climbing**

**I went two point seven seconds on a**

**bull named Fumanchu**

**And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter**

**And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying**

**And he said one day I hope you get a**

**chance**

**To live like you were dying**

"**In my head, I did all sorts of things I wouldn't have done otherwise, like sky diving, mountain climbing and bull riding."**

**He said I was finally the husband**

**That most the time I wasn't**

**And I became a friend a friend would**

**Like to have**

"**But Dad, this will help you too. You're the husband that Mum always wanted and you pay more attention to Remus and Sirius than you did when I was little or when I was at Hogwarts. And do you know why? Because you're scared you'll loose them like you'll loose me."**

**And all 'a sudden going fishin'**

**Wasn't such an imposition**

**And I went three times that year I lost**

**my dad**

"**James, where are you going in that tacky suit?"**

"**Fishing, Lily."**

"**You are going to get laughed at. Did you wear that the other two times you and Sirius took Harry fishing."**

"**Yep," he answered.**

"**You're crazy."**

"**Yep," he said with a smile.**

**And I finally read the good book**

**And I took a good long hard look**

**At what I'd do if I could do it all**

**again…and then**

"**Prongsie, what're you doing?"**

"**What would you do if you could do everything again?" James said to Sirius.**

"**I'd trade places with Harry, let him be healthy," Sirius answered being dead serious.**

**I went sky diving I went rocky**

**mountain climbing**

**I went two point seven seconds on a**

**bull named Fumanchu**

**And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter**

**And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying**

**And he said one day I hope you get a**

**chance**

**To live like you were dying**

"**James, he's kind out of it so don't expect a big father-son conversation," Lily said on the verge of tears. James nodded and walked into the hospital room. Harry lay under mountains of covers. He turned his head slightly and said, "Dad."**

"**Ssh," both Lily and James said softly.**

**He motioned for James to come over to the bed and very softly he said, "I hope some day you get the chance to live like you were dying."**

**Like tomorrow was a gift**

**And you've got eternity to think of what**

**you did with it**

**What you did with it…what did I do with it**

"**And then the great giant stomped down on the house…"**

**James walked into the room, Lily was telling Harry a story. This was it. They decided to take Harry home so he could be in his house when he 'left'. James didn't want to think about it. No, he didn't even say dead, death, dying, passing, passed on, or any other word that could relate to them. Right now, Lily was telling Harry his favorite childhood story: The Great Giant and James wouldn't ruin it by walking in crying, so he stopped in the doorway and listened from there. If the 13-year-old hadn't been out of it, he wouldn't have been listening to the story Lily was telling. But, James told himself, Harry doesn't know anymore. **

**I went sky diving I went rocky**

**mountain climbing**

**I went two point seven seconds on a**

**bull named Fumanchu**

**And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter**

**And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying**

**And he said one day I hope you get a**

**chance**

**To live like you were dying**

**That night, James fell asleep leaning against the door frame. He dreamed about skydiving and mountain climbing and riding on a muggle bull machine thing. When he woke up, Sirius was picking Harry up and moving him from the living room. James walked up behind Sirius and asked when it happened. Sirius said Lily had called him a few minutes ago. James had missed it, he felt horrible. He wasn't with Harry when he 'left'. At the funeral James thought for sure that he saw Harry leaning against the door frame saying the last words that he had ever said, "Dad, I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying." **

**And that's what James did.**


	2. Thanks

PreciousLily: I wasn't really thinking about that...use your imagination on what Harry had. Off the top of my head I don't know if there are other stories like this one but you could always look using search.

Thanks to the ten people who reviewed.


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